The Agriculture Department in 2004 gave the green light to using carbon monoxide gas to keep older cuts of meat looking red and fresh, even though scientists at the two companies promoting the technology had questioned the validity of their own safety tests, congressional investigators revealed yesterday.

The tests, conducted by Cargill and Hormel Foods, both of Minnesota, were part of a joint effort to persuade federal regulators to allow use of the gas without going through a public approval process. Inexplicably, however, the tests found that microbial counts on meat that had been left under-refrigerated went down over time instead of up, as expected, even as other indicators of spoilage increased, suggesting the possibility of some kind of error.

“Believe me, we are also puzzled by the data,” a Hormel employee wrote in a May 2004 e-mail, marked CONFIDENTIAL, to a colleague at Cargill. “Please let me know if you see any other funny data . . .” he wrote later. “Quite honestly, this test seemed to raise more questions than what it answered.”

Yet Agriculture Department scientists did not question the data when they reviewed them a few weeks later, and then relied upon them to reverse the agency’s earlier decision to oppose the technology, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said at a hearing. In July 2004, acting on USDA’s recommendation, the Food and Drug Administration gave the technology final approval.

Asked by Stupak if the e-mails raise concerns about the approval, the Agriculture Department’s lead reviewer, Robert Post, said: “Based on this information, I think this leads to some questions, yes.”

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111302016.html